WE HAVE these philosophical debates in the car, me and the kids. They're just getting to the age when they've started asking Big Life questions that I find myself struggling to answer. Like: "Do they have television in heaven?"
Of course, I didn't want to burst their bubble – after all, they both still believe in the tooth fairy. So I tried to humour them, see what they could work out for themselves, play devil's advocate.
Well, I said, if you were in heaven, and heaven
is a perfect place – would you want there to be TV? My daughter replied, unconditionally: "Yes!" But she wouldn't want to have to share it with anyone. And she definitely wouldn't let her brother use his PlayStation on it.
He protested.
"There's no PlayStation allowed in heaven," she said, then added: "Or Xbox."
So, I suggested, surely then everyone in heaven would have to have their own TV. So wouldn't it be a very noisy place? All those millions of souls watching telly? This troubled my daughter for a minute. My son suggested that everyone could have his or her own headphones. A good practical solution.
Slowly this dystopian image formed in my mind, in a vast white hall atop a cloud, ten thousand people from all ages and cultures, Mesopotamians and ancient Greeks, sat huddled in front of their TVs with their headphones on, all ignoring each other, elbowing for more space. An image of more profound alienation I could not think of.
What would everyone be watching with headphones on in heaven? I ventured that since heaven was for all eternity, then it wouldn't take long for all the new programmes to get watched, and the back catalogue to get used up, so mostly TV in heaven would be repeats. The kids didn't like this idea at all.
Furthermore, unless there were TV companies in heaven, then all of the programmes would be about earth, which would be a bit like watching the holiday channel for eternity – with all the programmes being about a terrible war-torn, violently conflicted place you couldn't go to, even if you wanted to.
I held back from my usual criticism of heaven – that since we all fight on earth, and are supposed to retain our identity in heaven, then it follows that we'd end up fighting over everything in heaven too. Turf wars in the clouds.
I could tell that my daughter was working hard at something in her mind as she and her brother started arguing over whether The Matrix would be permissible, or Alien Vs Predator.
He insisted no one should be allowed to watch her favourite Abba pop videos compilation, as it would drive everyone nuts if people went round humming 'Mamma Mia' for all eternity.
Suddenly she came out with the line that had been troubling her…
"There's no such thing as heaven, is there Daddy?"
Amazing, I thought. She'd followed an argument through to its inevitable conclusion, in the tradition of Socratic method. Not bad for a seven-year-old.
"What made you come up with that?" I asked, feeling proud.
"Cos, if they didn't have Abba it would just be hell."
Indeed.
The full article contains 550 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
